It has been proven that it was not from an Israeli shell, although most places forgot to report that.Originally posted by: BBond
Does anyone remember how this all began? The U.S. MSM isn't reminding anyone. They're blaming the Palestinians. But I remember some Israeli missiles wiping out several civilians enjoying a day at the beach in Gaza.
Originally posted by: ThePresence
It has been proven that it was not from an Israeli shell, although most places forgot to report that.Originally posted by: BBond
Does anyone remember how this all began? The U.S. MSM isn't reminding anyone. They're blaming the Palestinians. But I remember some Israeli missiles wiping out several civilians enjoying a day at the beach in Gaza.
The explosion occurred about 15 minutes after the ship stopped firing.
There was no crater that would indicate a shell landed.
The shrapnel taken from the victims did not come from an Israeli shell.
Oh, and this had absolutely nothing to do with what's going on now. The tunnel used to attack the Israeli position was being dug for over two months.
BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip, June 11 - Huda Ghaliya, the sixth-grade student whose horrified screams on Friday as she knelt by her dead family on a Gaza beach were televised around the world, has quickly become an icon of the Palestinian struggle against Israeli might.
Eleven-year-old Huda unwittingly became a symbol of Palestinian pain and loss during an afternoon picnic with her family on a hot day when a cameraman captured her shrieking ''Father, Father, Father!'' as she hovered over the bloody bodies of 13 dead or wounded members of her family, hit by what was apparently an errant Israeli artillery shell.
Although Huda's mother, Hamdia, 42, survived the explosion, badly wounded, Palestinians consider a fatherless child like Huda to be an orphan. Her father, Ali, 49, had another wife, Raisa, who died on the beach, along with five of Huda's siblings.
On Saturday, the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh announced plans to adopt her. A few miles south, at the graduation ceremony of Gaza's elite American School, the senior class president, Yasmine al-Khoudary, 17, evoked gasps from the audience, then roaring applause, when she interrupted her commencement speech to plead for the school to admit Huda Ghaliya and give her a full scholarship.
Moments after the ceremony, the school's board members announced that they would invite Huda to be the school's newest scholarship student.
From farmers to businessmen, Palestinians seemed to be rushing to embrace their latest orphan in the nearly 60-year conflict with Israel. Not since the terrified face of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Durra was filmed by a television cameraman moments before his death nearly six years ago in an Israeli-Palestinian clash in Gaza has a child captured the hearts and minds of the Palestinian public as has Huda Ghaliya.
In the case of Muhammad, Israel quickly assumed responsibility and apologized, though later there were some who contended that he might have been hit by a Palestinian bullet.
Friends and relatives say that Huda is a bright student who has been attending Shaima Elementary School for Girls in Beit Lahiya, a poor north Gazan town with a population of 35,000, best known for its magnificent strawberries, and more recently as a staging point for crude rocket attacks against Israel.
Amal Ghaliya, 12, a cousin and classmate, said Huda loved reading, math and science and was among the top 10 students in her class. Her favorite books in sixth grade were the biography of the early scientist Hassan Ibn al-Haitham, considered the father of modern optics, and the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish's famous work, ''Identity Card.''
Each day after school, Huda joined her father working their small plot of land, near the Israeli border. ''She wanted to make her father proud,'' said Amal. ''She adored her father.'' June 7 was her last day of school, and she was anxiously awaiting the results of her exams when she went with her family on the beach outing.
Huda was one of 10 children of Ali with his wife Hamdia, 42.
She returned to the village and is staying with an aunt, but on Sunday she was in Gaza City visiting her mother in the hospital.
In the village on Sunday, in the courtyard here where the Ghaliya family held the wake, hundreds of women from across Gaza came to offer condolences. ''We will seek justice for your murderers,'' one woman sang, and others chanted, ''We swear to God, to Muhammad, in the name of Hamas -- we will seek justice in your name, oh glorious martyrs.''
The two dozen Ghaliya women welcomed the visitors and made no objections to their comments but looked at one another with silent unease, perhaps discomfited by the politicization of their family tragedy.
Kifah Ghaliya, 22, a cousin on Mr. Ghaliya's side who spent Friday night with Huda, said she had been resting under a blanket on Friday when the shells hit the area where her family had set up their picnic.
Her oldest sister, Alia, 25, was still alive, and told Huda to see if one of her two brothers was all right. He was, so Alia told her to check on her father. Huda found him dead, the moment captured on camera.
Alia died on the way to the hospital, along with three other sisters: Ilham, 15, Sabreen, 4, and Hanadi, 1. Raisa, 35, and her baby, 4-month-old Haitham, died on the beach.
Huda's siblings Amani 22, Iham, 20, Ayham, 18, Adham, 9, and Latifa, 8, survived, as did a half-sister Hadil, 8. Adham and Ayham are being treated in Israeli hospitals, and Amani, who is said to be in serious condition, is expected to be moved to an Israeli hospital on Monday.
Mariam Ghaliya Ghaben, Huda's paternal aunt, said at the wake that she was puzzled by all the attention poured on Huda. ''It is Hadil, my 8-year-old niece, who has lost both mother and father,'' she said. ''They should be looking after her! Huda, after all, still has her mother.''
Less than eighteen months ago, four of Ms. Ghaben's sons and her grandson were killed by Israeli shelling on the Beit Lahiya strawberry field adjacent to their house. ''I am the mother of the strawberry martyrs and the sister and aunt of the beach martyrs,'' she said. ''Only God knows what will come next.''
Israel faces international condemnation over the killing of eight Palestinian civilians, including three children while they picnicked on a Gaza beach.
The criticism comes as the thousands gather to bury the family, killed in Friday's attack.
The United States, Israel's staunchest ally, voiced "its regret for the killing and wounding of innocent Palestinians", and urged both sides to show restraint "and avoid all actions that could exacerbate tensions further".
United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan called for a full investigation into Friday's air raids, saying he was "deeply disturbed" by the killings.
The Arab League condemned the attack as "unacceptable terrorism".
Seven Palestinians died on Friday, when the Israeli military shelled the beach where they were enjoying the Muslim day of rest, an eighth victim died in hospital on Saturday.
Thousands gathered overnight at the central mosque in the family's home town of Beit Lahiya for the funeral, so many came that hundreds had to pray on the road outside.
The bodies of the family's father, his wife, their baby boy and four of their girls aged between two and 17, were wrapped in white shrouds and green Islamic flags.
Ceasefire ended
The military wing of the Palestinian's Hamas Government says it has ended its 16-month ceasefire in response to the attacks.
The announcement came just before Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas set July 26 as the date for a referendum on a peace plan that implicitly recognises Israel's right to exist.
Mr Abbas has declared three days of mourning for the victims of what he described as Israel's "bloody massacres".
In Tel Aviv, around 100 Israeli pacifists gathered at the house of the army chief of staff, Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, shouting "murderer".
Among the demonstrators was Dana Olmert, the daughter of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, one of the organisers said, adding she left when she saw she was being photographed.
Condemnation
Russia - a member of the international quartet mediating in the Middle East peace process alongside the European Union, the UN and the US, said it was deeply shocked by Israel's "unacceptable" and "disproportionate" use of force.
France also condemned the air raids as "disproportionate", while Spain expressed its "opposition to the use of force as a means of solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict".
Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa told reporters in Cairo on Saturday: "We condemn these Israeli raids that targeted women and children. This is unacceptable terrorism".
In Amman, where Jordan's King Abdullah II met Olmert this week about the peace process, the government called the Israeli killings a "crime".
"The Israeli escalation against the Palestinians does not help in creating climates of trust between the two sides and will increase tensions," the official Petra news agency quoted government spokesman Nasser Jawdeh as saying.
Egypt and Syria likewise condemned the Israeli bombardments as unacceptable.
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the largest opposition bloc in parliament, denounced the deaths as a "new massacre".
"These Zionist carousings and immoral escape that relies on the intransigence of force, which is fully supported by Washington, must be condemned and denounced and in the strongest terms," the group said.
These actions "require a swift move from all official and popular forces to stop them immediately".
Investigation call
Elsewhere in the Middle East, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora warned that verbal condemnation was insufficient "in the face of continuing Israeli barbarism" and appealed for an international investigation into the shelling.
Calls for international action were echoed in Iran, where Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki met his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmud al-Zahar, on Saturday.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi condemned "the savage Zionist regime's crime in killing innocent Palestinians" and called for a UN inquiry.
Turkey, Israel's main ally in the region, said those responsible for the attack should be punished, after Israel said it regretted what happened and would suspend shelling while conducting its own inquiry.
Ankara urged both Israelis and Palestinians to show restraint, while Syria appealed to the Palestinians to remain united despite the attack.
Hamas
But the military wing of Hamas announced it had fired at least 14 rockets into Israel after ending its ceasefire.
Two Syrian-based groups - the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - urged "all militant Palestinian branches ... to unite in the battle for the defence of the Palestinian people, to respond to this massacre and punish the criminals".
The Israeli army said Hamas had fired home-made rockets into Israeli territory but reported no damage or casualties.
Medical officials said four Palestinians were wounded when one of the notoriously unreliable rockets struck northern Gaza.
- AFP
A barrage of Israeli artillery shells rained down on a busy Gaza beach yesterday, killing seven Palestinians, three of them children. The attack put further strain on the 16-month truce between Israel and the governing Hamas movement.
Witnesses described several explosions that also injured dozens of other people who lay on the beach, screaming and pleading for help. Some ran into the sea for fear of more shells hitting the sands at Beit Lahia, in the north of the Gaza strip.
Among the dead were three children, aged one, three, and 10. Their sister was swimming and survived.
The beach was packed with picnicking families enjoying the Muslim day of rest, and the explosions landed among them, scattering body parts along the dunes. Television footage showed a woman and a child laying dead on the sand, and another child screaming in agony while a lifeless man was carried away by an ambulance crew.
Associated Press reported that a tearful man held the limp body of what appeared to be a girl or young woman. "Muslims, look at this," he shouted.
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, called the killings a "bloody massacre" and demanded international intervention.
"No doubt what's going on in Gaza is a bloody massacre against our people, our civilians, without discrimination," he said. "I call upon the international community, the UN security council, the quartet [the EU, the US, Russia and the UN], to put an end to this Israeli killing policy."
The prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader and a political opponent of Mr Abbas, went further, calling the deaths a "war crime". He urged Jordan and Egypt, both mediators in past Israeli-Palestinian talks, to intervene.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said that the attack showed "the Zionist occupation insists on killing ... and does not distinguish between civilian children and freedom fighters".
But the most furious reaction of all came from Hamas's militant wing, which called off its 16-month ceasefire with Israel and threatened revenge attacks. "The earthquake in the Zionist towns will start again and the aggressors will have no choice but to prepare their coffins or their luggage," the military wing said in a statement. "The resistance groups ... will choose the proper place and time for the tough, strong and unique response." There was no immediate comment from the political wing of Hamas.
The Israeli army said it "regretted" the deaths and called a halt to the shelling. It offered help to get the survivors to Israeli hospitals. The shells that hit Beit Lahia beach were the latest of more than 6,000 fired into the Gaza Strip by Israel over the past two months. One possibility is that they had fallen short when being fired at areas on the outskirts of Beit Lahia used by armed Palestinian groups to launch rockets into Israel.
"The military definitely would not target a beach full of people," said an army spokesman. The military said that although many of the shells fired yesterday were from Israeli gunboats, it believed the explosives that hit the beach were from army artillery. Israel said it has fired thousands of artillery shells into the Gaza Strip in response to armed Palestinian groups such as Islamic Jihad firing hundreds of homemade rockets into Israel. Israeli shells have killed about 15 civilians this year, including five children. The Palestinian rockets have not claimed any lives but have wounded several Israelis.
Human rights groups have described the persistent Israeli shelling as a form of collective punishment, particularly after the military changed its rules to allow shells to explode within 100 metres of a built-up area.
On Thursday an Israeli air force attack killed one of the most prominent Palestinian leaders in the area - the head of the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza, Jamal Abu Samhadana.
Israeli naval gunboats killed at least seven Palestinian civilians and wounded about 40 others as they relaxed in the summer heat on a beach in northern Gaza yesterday. Palestinian medical sources said that eight of the dead were from one family. The total included six women and a three-year-old girl.
Lt-Gen Dan Halutz, the Israeli chief of staff, ordered an end to the shelling from land and sea, which had continued throughout the day in retaliation for Palestinian rocket fire into the western Negev. The army apologised for the incident, saying it "regretted the attack on innocent people".
Originally posted by: libs0n
During the past 6 months Israel has launched 7000-9000 artillery rounds into Gaza, killing about 80 Palestinians. If you also recall, during that time they cut off funds they collect on behalf of the Palestinians, helping to starve their government and economy. Terrible time to be a citizen in Gaza, to be sure.
You could've posted all your stories neatly in one post, makes it easier.Originally posted by: BBond
BTW, I posted my link to the story, where's your link to your theory, "Presence"? You might be able to find it easier if you don your tin foil hat first. :roll:
Lt-Gen Dan Halutz, the Israeli chief of staff, ordered an end to the shelling from land and sea, which had continued throughout the day in retaliation for Palestinian rocket fire into the western Negev. The army apologised for the incident, saying it "regretted the attack on innocent people".
Originally posted by: BBond
You seem to have missed this quote:
Lt-Gen Dan Halutz, the Israeli chief of staff, ordered an end to the shelling from land and sea, which had continued throughout the day in retaliation for Palestinian rocket fire into the western Negev. The army apologised for the incident, saying it "regretted the attack on innocent people".
Are you trying to tell me the Israeli army apologized for something they didn't do?
Bwahahahaha.
You're not guessing, you're reading, and that's correct. I guess your investigation concluded otherwise?Originally posted by: BBond
Let me guess, the Israeli army conducted the investigation that concluded they didn't do what they already apologized for doing. :roll:
Uh huh.
Originally posted by: BBond
Let me guess, the Israeli army conducted the investigation that concluded they didn't do what they already apologized for doing. :roll:
Uh huh.
Originally posted by: ThePresence
You're not guessing, you're reading, and that's correct. I guess your investigation concluded otherwise?Originally posted by: BBond
Let me guess, the Israeli army conducted the investigation that concluded they didn't do what they already apologized for doing. :roll:
Uh huh.
I do like how you smoothly ignored the other points I made. Well done.
I understand your skepticism and I freely admit my bias, but I do find the Israelis a hell of alot more credible than the Palestinians. They never admitted they did it. They expressed remorse for the deaths of innocents when they were unsure if it may have been an errant shell fired to repress rocket fire on an Israeli town. They later concluded that it was not theirs. I believe them, you don't, fine.Originally posted by: BBond
Originally posted by: ThePresence
You're not guessing, you're reading, and that's correct. I guess your investigation concluded otherwise?Originally posted by: BBond
Let me guess, the Israeli army conducted the investigation that concluded they didn't do what they already apologized for doing. :roll:
Uh huh.
I do like how you smoothly ignored the other points I made. Well done.
You made no points other than admitting the Israelis admitted they did it then renounced their own confession. Tell me, what is your opinion of defendants who confess to a crime then retract their confession? Now tell me why your opinion is different when the defendant is the Israeli army?
Hmmm?
They admitted they did it. They did it. Period. Stop being ridiculous.
Originally posted by: ThePresence
I understand your skepticism and I freely admit my bias, but I do find the Israelis a hell of alot more credible than the Palestinians.
Originally posted by: ThePresence
Simple. If The Palestinians laid down their arms today, they'd live in peace. If the Israelis did they'd be destroyed.
The Israelis do not intentionally target civillians. The Palestinians do.
Originally posted by: ThePresence Both sides have their extremists. The difference is the vast majority of Israelis dislike Israeli extremists, the vast majority of Palestinians fully support the extremists. That being said, the picture you just painted is entirely innacurate. It may have happened in a few isolated incidents, but that is certainly not the norm.
They certainly did a better job than you personally did. They interviewed a few Isralies who have relatives getting blown up by suicide bomber, and asked them why they still go on their daily routine (because they want to show no fear to the terrorists), and they do so because they want to stand for the rest of the country that they will not back down against the terrorists. If this is not covering the story on both sides in a good job, what is? blaming everything on the Palestinians?Originally posted by: ThePresenceI highly doubt they (the Chronicle) did a good job. Just saying firsthand from when I've seen the media completely skew things.
Then why aren't we (the US military) not doing it? Because we care about bringing freedom to others and we are keeping peace in foreign soil. They, the IDF, cares about bringing the soldier back at all cost. While they may not try to kill civilians, they certainly try to do as much colateral damage to the Palestinians as possible. The blanket statement that all elected Hamas politicians have hands that drip innocent blood is foolish. It is like saying all US soldiers rape Iraqi women and kill their family just because a few did. You know what this is? This is "it is only democracy if you elect people that I like, that will listen to me, that will accept Israel, that will not fight for a separate state of Palestine, that will not ask for their former homes back, that will not ask for an apartment per family, that will not ask for education for all people, ......" In other word, all Palestinians are terrorists if they are not puppets of the Isralie's government.Originally posted by: ThePresence Normally you'd be correct. But the people who kidnapped the soldier belong to a terrorist organization that shoots missles into towns and cities at random, sends suicide bombers into cities to kill as many civillians as possible. So it's very different in this conflict. They hit the university building which is a Hamas stronghold. They're not sitting there studying phsyics. You say "politicians" like they're harmless normal public servants. They are members of Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Their hands are dripping innocent blood.
Then they should have the international force come into the country to take care of them, if not because IDF is biased, it will at least make both side feel more convinced and the situation more justified. I am not saying that Palestinian civilians are more important (both sides civilians are important), but I am saying that unlike the typical 1st world military, IDF do not put priority in non-citizen civilians life in combats, and that is shown in the children's casulty difference.Originally posted by: ThePresence There is no other way to fight a group who intentionally blurs the line between terrorist and civillians. They bring death to the same people they claim to be concerned about. Israel cannot sit back, they have to respond. Why are Palestinian civillians more important than Israeli civillans? And Israel does not intentionally target them.
So, I guess you want Israel to get all the land and either kick all the Palestinians out to every other country in the world, or force them to convert to Judism and become Jewish. Let's try that in the US and see if that works. Let's kick all the black people back to Africa and force all the mexican and chinese to change their last name to smith, white, or johnson.Originally posted by: ThePresenceHear, hear (aside from the ridiculous 'moral ground' comment).
So they can do what? genocide? kick them out of the country? or put them all in jail?Originally posted by: ThePresence Israel would like nothing better than to have their hands untied by the US and world opinion.
Originally posted by: dexvx
Originally posted by: daniel49
there is no government in the world that has been dealing with arab terrorists as long as Isreal.
They simply understand what it takes to deal with these people.
Something the United States and Europe have no stomach for.
You can see how well our ideas of appeasement have worked In Palestine.
LoL?
And how successful has Isreal been? Despite an extreme hardline approach, they have failed to stop the underlying problem of Terrorism. While it may solve the issue in the short term, it does nothing in the long-term.